In Germany, more than 60% of Black people and Muslims have experienced discrimination, according to a new study by the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor. The consequences can be severe.
As a german citizen with an immigrant background from Eastern Europe, I can confirm this. It’s bad enough for a white looking, german passing eastern european. My friends from the Middle East or Africa have had a much, much worse experience than I ever will. Hell, I was walking down the street with my black friend once and some guys in their early twenties decided it’d be funny to scream the N word at us out of their car while also telling us to “go back where we came from”.
Or another interesting story, I was at McDonalds the day right after the Hamas attack on Israel happened. Apparently the cashier thought it’d be acceptable to tell the muslim woman (that was obviously just a student or a tourist coming from abroad cause she had a huge suitcase with her with those airline tags on it) in front of me that she should learn german or don’t come here, then said shit like “only thing you muslims know to do is behead people” and gestured with his hand at his neck the movement of cutting someone’s head off. I was the only one to intervene and tell him it’s not okay. All the pasty ass german boomers behind me just stayed in line and waited for their shitty burgers to arrive, literally no words of condemnation.
As an American I’m sometimes caught off guard by European racism. Ethno-nationalism makes zero sense here - everyone’s an immigrant, except for the massively opressed indigenous Indians. I can see how it could make a kind of sense in a country that’s had one ethic group for centuries, but given his many wars and how much migration has happened over the last 1,000 years in Europe such attitudes can be dubious in places. Even still, it’s stupid, denying the humanity of people who are just trying to get by like everyone else.
The way people are racist is somewhat different, sure to different cultures and histories. I wonder how much American racism y’all have imported; we have rather different histories with different ethnicities than y’all have. Even different parts of America have different kinds and degrees of racism from each other. It’s a big fucking country.
As a german citizen with an immigrant background from Eastern Europe, I can confirm this. It’s bad enough for a white looking, german passing eastern european. My friends from the Middle East or Africa have had a much, much worse experience than I ever will. Hell, I was walking down the street with my black friend once and some guys in their early twenties decided it’d be funny to scream the N word at us out of their car while also telling us to “go back where we came from”.
Or another interesting story, I was at McDonalds the day right after the Hamas attack on Israel happened. Apparently the cashier thought it’d be acceptable to tell the muslim woman (that was obviously just a student or a tourist coming from abroad cause she had a huge suitcase with her with those airline tags on it) in front of me that she should learn german or don’t come here, then said shit like “only thing you muslims know to do is behead people” and gestured with his hand at his neck the movement of cutting someone’s head off. I was the only one to intervene and tell him it’s not okay. All the pasty ass german boomers behind me just stayed in line and waited for their shitty burgers to arrive, literally no words of condemnation.
As an American I’m sometimes caught off guard by European racism. Ethno-nationalism makes zero sense here - everyone’s an immigrant, except for the massively opressed indigenous Indians. I can see how it could make a kind of sense in a country that’s had one ethic group for centuries, but given his many wars and how much migration has happened over the last 1,000 years in Europe such attitudes can be dubious in places. Even still, it’s stupid, denying the humanity of people who are just trying to get by like everyone else.
The way people are racist is somewhat different, sure to different cultures and histories. I wonder how much American racism y’all have imported; we have rather different histories with different ethnicities than y’all have. Even different parts of America have different kinds and degrees of racism from each other. It’s a big fucking country.